According to Their Deeds

by Paul Robertson

  “Will you be busy this afternoon?” Dorothy asked as Charles settled into his desk.

  “I’m not sure. I may have made an appointment.”

  “Who would you be meeting with?”

  “Our matchmaker. In the meantime, I would like to take a break from my detective work. Are we still doing a fall catalog, dear?”

  “I’m still hoping to.”

  “Good! Let me at it!”

  “Mr. Beale?”

  “Yes, Alice?”

  “You have a telephone call. Mr. Anthony Prescott from Sotheby’s in London.”

  “Thank you for your half hour,” Dorothy said. “Back to work?”

  “Not quite. This is actually bookstore business, so it will still count as play.” He lifted his telephone. “Hello, this is Charles Beale.”

  “Mr. Beale, this is Anthony Prescott from Sotheby’s in London. We spoke earlier today?”

  “Yes, of course. Thank you for calling back, Mr. Prescott. It must be rather late for you. I hope you have some news for me?”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Beale. I can’t give you any information about your book.”

  “What—nothing?”

  “My apologies, sir, that we can’t help you.”

  “Do you mean that you don’t have any information, or that you can’t give it to me?”

  “I’m very sorry, sir. That’s all I can say.”

  “Oh. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Prescott.”

  “Yes, sir. Have a pleasant day.”

  Charles set the telephone down and stared across the room at Dorothy.

  “You look like someone just ran over your dog,” she said.

  “Yes, poor Argos. I’d finally landed on Ithaca,” he said. “And the car that squashed him was Penelope running off with the mailman.”

  “That’s terrible.”

  “It is.” He frowned. “Except that it’s seven o’clock in London.”

  “He must have been working late.”

  “And on Friday. Odd. Oh, well—that’s what I get for hoping.”

  “I’m sorry, dear,” Dorothy said.

  “Not at all. Something might turn up. And besides, if someone wanted to buy Odysseus, I would have to sell him.”

  “And if you did, I might have to spend the money paying these bills.”

  “Pesky bills! Very well. Speaking of selling books, I need to pick a few more for the catalog. I think I’ll look at the shelves downstairs.”

  Alice’s smile was a passable antidepressant and the rows of books even more. Charles browsed them for a while, slipping past literature and travel and into sports.

  “Mr. Beale?”

  “Yes, Morgan?”

  He was sitting on the stairs in his usual pose. “Mrs. Beale said Sothe-by’s stiffed you?”

  “Yes. They did. Very politely.”

  “Shall I keep looking?”

  “You can. Jacob mentioned Padding and Brewster as possible publishers. I know they’ve been out of business for a century, but there might be some trace still.”

  “Yes, sir. Didn’t Sotheby’s have any records of the auction?”

  “He wouldn’t say. He wouldn’t say anything. It must have been some kind of secret.”

  The front door opened. “Hey, boss.”

  “Hello, Angelo. How was today’s expedition?”

  Angelo crossed the room. “I did not see that lady.”

  “I didn’t find what I was looking for today either. How many places have you visited so far?”

  He was already two steps up, but he stopped to pay attention. “I have seen ten places.”

  “Good. Have you done the same thing in each one, where you ask about picking up a package?”

  “Every one is the same.”

  “Have you had any trouble in any of them?”

  “No trouble.”

  “Have any of them treated you nicely?”

  Angelo shrugged. “I talk and they talk.”

  “Do you treat them nicely?”

  “I am always nice.”

  “We need to be sure we have a good definition for that word,”

  Charles said.

  The front door opened again.

  “Beale.”

  Charles answered. “Mr. Jones. Good afternoon.”

  Mr. Jones only said, “Downstairs.”

  “Of course. This way.”

  Charles led, barely keeping ahead of the long, fast legs. Alice watched with wide eyes, and Angelo with narrowed ones.

  Whump, the bag of coat hangers landed in the chair. Whupp, the long legs shot out.

  “Okay, Beale, talk.”

  “I really just have the questions I asked on the telephone.”

  The chair leaned backward as Mr. Jones became straight, heel to head, at a thirty-degree angle to the floor. His arms crossed behind his head.

  “I don’t feel like answering them. Think of something else.”

  “All right. Let’s try the auction. You were there, you saw how at least two people desperately wanted Derek Bastien’s desk. They bid it up to a hundred thousand dollars. You bid on it, too.”

  “It’s a nice desk.”

  “It is. But it’s worth twenty-five thousand dollars, not a hundred thousand. There’s some other reason those two people wanted it so badly.”

  “I’ll tell you this, Beale. I don’t know anything about it that’s worth that much money.”

  “But you do know something, and that brings me back to my first question about a secret drawer. Do you put hidden compartments in furniture? Have you ever?”

  “Beale, you’re walking on thin ice.”

  “That’s almost an answer by itself.”

  Mr. Jones leaned farther back, and his stare was even more acute. “What’s your angle in this, anyway, Beale?”

  “I’m trying to do the right thing.”

  His answer was a bitter, “Yeah, what’s that?”

  “I think you’re not obtuse, Mr. Jones,” Charles said. “This is what I’m working with. I saw a copy of a newspaper article about police finding cocaine hidden somehow in a piece of furniture.”

  Galen Jones leaned forward, slowly, his gray bushy mustache traveling a very long distance to barely a foot from Charles’s nose.

  “Where did you see that?”

  “If you were Derek and you had that paper, where would you keep it?”

  Mr. Jones showed he was not obtuse. A fierce light broke in his eyes.

  “That lying—” The jaw clamped shut. “I’ll kill him.”

  “He’s already dead, of course,” Charles said.

  “Then he deserved it.”

  “So you did do something to the desk?”

  “Yeah, it’s a drawer.” He leaned back to a less hostile distance. “So wait a minute. Where did you see that about the cocaine? Do you have the desk?”

  “I don’t, and I don’t know who does. I’ve already told you a lot. Why don’t you tell me what you know?”

  “Okay, I’ll tell you.” He bent forward again, but this time it was to confide. “I met him first three years ago to fix some chess pieces. High-berg set me up with him.”

  “What was wrong with the chess pieces?”

  “His wife broke them.”

  Charles paused. “Badly?”

  “With a hammer. Smashed. I just made him new ones. The two queens.”

  “This was the wood inlay set in his office?”

  “That’s where I saw it, on his desk,” Mr. Jones said. “So, a couple months later he called back and asked me to build him a hidden drawer in the desk.”

  “But you hadn’t said anything about ever doing that.”

  “That’s the kind of thing I never say.”

  “It got you in trouble before.”

  “A friend of a friend. I did him a favor and put a little space under a bed.”

  “That isn’t wrong, is it?” Charles said.

  “He made a deal with the cops when he got busted. Every name he could come up with wa
s worth points.”

  “What happened?”

  “It was ugly, but I hadn’t done anything. But it won’t do me any good if that desk ever gets my name on it. I didn’t work for a year after that with all the dealers yakking about me. Do you get that, Beale?”

  “I get it, Jones. That’s why you tried to buy the desk back?”

  “I wanted to just get it out of circulation. But some people have way too much money. For a desk.”

  “I think they wanted what was in it. Can you tell me what this drawer was like?”

  “Yeah. There’s eight inches behind the regular drawers on either side. That’s just how it was made originally. It’s empty space between the drawers and the back of the desk. On the left, there was a small drawer and a larger file drawer. This is what I did. You push them both into the desk at the same time, about an inch. If you push either one by itself, it won’t go. Push them both and then pull them back out, and when you pull the bottom file drawer all the way out, there’s a six-inch box behind that comes out with it. It hangs on the far back. Push the drawer back in, and next time you pull it out, there’s no box.”

  Charles nodded slowly. “It wouldn’t be easy to find.”

  “Depends on how hard someone’s looking.”

  “Would someone just stumble onto it? The movers? The appraiser from the auction house?”

  “I don’t know. Probably not, if they kept it level. A regular appraisal, you wouldn’t find it. If you pull the bottom drawer all the way out by itself and look in where it was, the box just looks like the inside of the desk.”

  “Whatever was in the drawer when Derek was killed—could it have still been there when the buyer picked it up last week?”

  “For all I know, it could be.”

  “And if that person knew there was a compartment,” Charles said, “they would find it.”

  “Soon enough, they would. They could tear the desk apart and it would be right there.”

  “Then it’s possible that person would have the original contents right now.”

  “It sounds like you know a lot about what that was,” Galen Jones said.

  “I’ve seen some of the papers that may have been in it. How much would this box have held?”

  “Six inches. At least a few hundred sheets of paper, or whatever else he put in it. So look, Beale.” He backed off entirely, to his full straight length. “I’ve told you everything I know. From what you say, I don’t think I want to know anything else.”

  “I will be glad not to tell you anything.”

  “Yeah, let’s do that. Like including whatever you think you’re doing.”

  “As I said, just the right thing.”

  “Lots of times that doesn’t work. You might want to be careful.”

  “I will take your advice, Mr. Jones.”

  Mr. Jones was finished. He stood, and Charles did also.

  “So Bastien had that paper about the cocaine, like it would do him any good.”

  “I don’t know why he had it.”

  “And he was keeping it in the drawer I made him.”

  “You weren’t the only one.”

  Mr. Jones was not finished. “I don’t get involved.” He flexed his fingers. “I just do my job, and I don’t ever get involved in anyone else’s. Because people that get into each other’s business get killed sometimes.”

  “Are you talking about me or Derek Bastien?”

  “Both of you. You really think you’re doing the right thing?”

  “I have no choice. I’m trying to undo what he did.”

  “Bastien betrayed me. You can’t undo that.”

  “I’m feeling rather betrayed myself, Mr. Jones. But I still think I can do something for some of the people involved.”

  Mr. Jones nodded. “Look, you ever need help, call me. Because if you try to do some right thing, you’ll probably need any help you can get.”

  Charles watched as Galen Jones left the shop.

  “And have we sold anything, Alice?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir, from the games shelf. A book on chess.”

  “Did you pick the last books?” Dorothy asked.

  In slow motion, Charles walked across the office and lowered himself into his chair. “What did you say?”

  “Did you pick any books?”

  “What books?”

  Dorothy took a slow motion breath. “For the catalog, dear. Weren’t you downstairs looking?”

  “Oh. No, Galen Jones came and we talked.”

  “He did come? You said he might. What did he want?”

  “It’s a long story. I need to make a telephone call.”

  “I can finish the catalog. We only have four more catalog pages to fill.”

  “Maybe you should, dear.” He shook his head to clear it, and gave Dorothy a wistful smile. “This won’t be a long call, but I’ll have an errand to run after it.”

  “Who are you calling?”

  He was already pushing buttons. “Norman Highberg, please,” he said.

  And he waited.

  “Hello?”

  “Norman? This is Charles Beale.”

  “Charles? I thought you were a customer. Why didn’t you tell her who you were?”

  “I am a customer.”

  “You are?” Norman was confused. “What? You mean you want to buy something?”

  “Do you still have that chess set?”

  “The Austrian wood inlay? Sure. What, you decided you want it?”

  “Will you still give me that deal?”

  “Thirty-two seventy-five, between friends. Okay. You’re keeping it, right? You’re not selling it?”

  “It’s for me.”

  “Because if someone’s going to sell it for five grand, I will. It’ll go for five, sooner or later.”

  “I want to buy it now.”

  “Okay, sold. Do you want to come get it?”

  “Do you deliver?” Charles asked.

  “Who, me? Sometimes. My wife’s nephew, I send him out sometimes, but he breaks things.”

  “I wouldn’t want it broken. Why don’t you bring it, Norman. I think it’s your turn to visit my shop, anyway.”

  “Okay. I can bring it. How about tomorrow?”

  “Saturday? That would be fine. We’re just open until two, but Dorothy and I will be here most of the day.”

  “And now, dear,” he said, “I am going out.”

  “This was the errand?”

  “I’m going to visit Lucy Bastien Cloverdale.”

  “Can’t you just call her?”

  “She told me not to call back.”

  “Well, Charles, that might mean she doesn’t want you to visit either.”

  “She didn’t say that. I don’t think she’ll turn me away.”

  “And you said it was terrible seeing the house changed,” Dorothy said.

  “I’ve gotten over it. It couldn’t be as big a shock or insult this time.”

  “Anybody ever call you Charlie?” Lucy Bastien said, leaning against the front door.

  Charles blinked.

  “I was wrong.”

  “What?”

  “Something I had just said to my wife. Never mind.”

  A stale, sticky smell drifted by.

  “May I come in? I just wanted to talk for a moment. I won’t be long. I hope you won’t mind?”

  “I don’t mind anything. Why should I mind?”

  She moved aside and Charles led the way into the front room. There was a loud crunch of wicker as they sat.

  “What can I do you for, Charlie?” She threw a sloppy smile across the yellowness.

  “I just had a question or two. I was looking at the books I bought at the auction.”

  “Auction. Oh, the auction! What about them?”

  “I was wondering . . . I wondered if anyone might have done anything to them. Before the auction.”

  “Before.” She frowned and thought very hard. “Maybe, um, whoever he was. Maybe he did.”

  �
�Who?”

  “You know, started with a D. Derek. Maybe he did.”

  “I mean after . . .”

  “After he got walloped, you mean?”

  “Right.”

  “Well, let’s see. The police were here and they didn’t let anybody in the house for a couple days. I called the auction place and they said they’d come when the police went away.”

  “How long was everything here in the house?”

  “I wanted it out of here as fast as it could go. Figured it was worth bundles so why not sell it? I told the auction man to come get it.”

  “So, just a few days?”

  “I needed to get rid of it all so I could get the place painted.”

  “Of course. They took everything? Even the furniture?”

  “Every historic five-hundred-year-old Louis the Fortieth splinter of it. I said if it was older than the milk in my refrigerator, I wanted it out. I drink a lot of milk. You want some milk?”

  “No thank you. I wonder—do you think anyone could have touched anything in the house before the auction people came and took it?”

  “Nobody came.”

  “Could someone have broken in?”

  “They already did. Why do it again?”

  “Why, indeed? I suppose once was enough. There were all those police around, too.”

  “Gobs.”

  “I wonder, Lucy. Why did you smash Derek’s chess set?”

  A huge grin appeared. “Did he tell you I did? Well, goody! Maybe he did care!”

  “Of course he’d care.”

  “You think he did? Wrong-oh, buddy. I figured I could get his attention. You think I did? He never said a word, and next thing I see, the pieces are back.” Her eyes got big, and she whispered, “Spooky.”

  “He got new ones.”

  “Oh. That’s what it was. I hope they cost him a bundle.”

  “I think they did. Did you smash many of his things?”

  “No, that was the only time. I would have done more if he’d shown some appreciation.”

  Charles nodded sympathetically. “Do you tend toward violence, Lucy?”

  “Not so much anymore. I get tired too easy.”

  “What did you say happened to your first husband?”

  “He died.” And so had the conversation. “See you later, Charlie. Time for my nap. The door’s that way.”

  “I am back,” Charles said.

  “Just in time to go home. Is fish still emotionally disturbing?”

  “No, I’ve regained my sea legs. And maybe some rice?”

  “Yes, there will be rice. Did I hear from your call to Norman High-berg that we are getting a chess set?”